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    The ABC of Enlightenment: a spiritual dictionary
    The ABC of Enlightenment: a spiritual dictionary
    The ABC of Enlightenment: a spiritual dictionary
    Ebook880 pages14 hours

    The ABC of Enlightenment: a spiritual dictionary

    By Osho and Osho International Foundation

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    About this ebook

    The inner world needs its own vocabulary, and Osho is a master of creating a language to describe experiences of the inner world that is simple, unpretentious and clear. 'The ABC of Enlightenment' is not just a dictionary but a book on life itself. It contains concise quotes by Osho on a large variety of topics. For those who are unfamiliar with him, this is an easy introduction to his way of life and also an entertaining reference book. From 'Absolute' to 'Zen' Osho is never at lack of profoundness and both traditional and contemporary issues are redefined and reinterpreted for a contemporary understanding.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOsho Media International
    Release dateMar 14, 2011
    ISBN9780880507851
    The ABC of Enlightenment: a spiritual dictionary
    Author

    Osho

    Osho is one of the most provocative and inspiring spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. Known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, the influence of his teachings continues to grow, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world. He is the author of many books, including Love, Freedom, Aloneness; The Book of Secrets; and Innocence, Knowledge, and Wonder.

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    The ABC of Enlightenment - Osho

    INTRODUCTION

    Words are not just words. They have moods, climates of their own. When a word settles inside you, it brings a different climate to your mind, a different approach, a different vision. Call the same thing a different name and see: something is immediately different.

    So one of the most important things to remember is, if it is possible, live an experience and don’t fix it by any word, because that will make it narrow. You are sitting... it is a silent evening. The sun has gone and the stars have started appearing. Just be. Don’t even say, This is beautiful, because the moment you say that it is beautiful, it is no longer the same. By saying beautiful you are bringing in the past, and all the experiences that you have said were beautiful have colored the word. Your word beautiful contains many experiences of beauty – but this is totally new! It has never been so, and it will never be so again. Why bring in the past?

    The present is so vast, and the past is so narrow. Why look through a hole in the wall when you can come out and look at the whole sky? So try not to use words – but if you have to, then be very choosy about them because each word has a nuance of its own. Be very poetic about it. Use it with taste, love, feeling.

    There are feeling words and there are intellectual words. Drop intellectual words more and more. Use more and more feeling words. There are political words and there are religious words. Drop political words. There are words which immediately create conflict. The moment you utter them, argument arises. So never use logical, argumentative language. Use the language of affection, of caring, of love, so that no argument arises.

    If one starts feeling this way, one sees a tremendous change arising. If one is a little alert in life, many miseries can be avoided. A single word uttered in unconsciousness can create a long chain of misery. A slight difference, just a very small turning and it makes a lot of change. One should become very, very careful and use words when absolutely necessary. Avoid contaminated words. Use fresh words, noncontroversial, which are not arguments but which are just expressions of your feelings.

    If one can become a connoisseur of words, one’s whole life will be totally different. Your relationships will be totally different because ninety-nine percent of a relationship is through words, gestures – and those are also words. The same word has created so many troubles for you and again you blurt it out. If a word brings misery, anger, conflict, argument, drop it. What is the point in carrying it? Replace it by something better. The best is silence. Next best is singing, poetry, love.

    A

    ABSTINENCE

    You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality. Sexuality has already penetrated. The moment you were in the womb of your mother you became a sexual being. There is no way to avoid it. So all that you can do is repress it. You will become unnatural, and your whole life will be a perverted life. Repression is possible, but transcendence is not.

    I have heard:

    Ellen and Dolph had been married thirty years and never missed a night of connubial bliss. One day Ellen visited her doctor and was told that she must have complete rest and quiet for six months or she would not live.

    Ellen and Dolph decided they should stay completely apart during this period. She moved into an upstairs bedroom and he remained downstairs.

    After three months of complete abstinence and solitude, his will power collapsed, and Dolph started for her bedroom. As he started to climb the stairs, he saw her coming down.

    Dear, she said, I was just coming down to die.

    I’m glad, honey, he said, because I was just going up to kill you.

    Don’t be mad, let things be simple. There is no need to kill or die. Repression will make things very complicated in your life; you will become split, schizophrenic – just celibate on the surface, and deep down just the opposite of it.

    ABSTRACTIONS

    It is always simple to love abstract things. It is simpler to love humanity than human beings, because in loving humanity you are not risking anything. A single human being is far more dangerous than the whole of humanity. Humanity is a word, there is no corresponding reality to it. The human being is a reality, and when you come across a reality there are going to be good times, bad times, pain, pleasure, ups and downs, highs and lows, agonies and ecstasies. Loving humanity, there will be no ecstasy and no agony. In fact, loving humanity is a way of avoiding human beings: because you can’t love human beings you start loving humanity just to deceive yourself.

    Avoid abstractions.

    ABSURDITY

    Everything beautiful is absurd. Joy is one of those experiences that are not utilitarian. Love, peace, enlightenment – all are absurd, absurd in the sense that they have no meaning beyond themselves. Their meaning is intrinsic.

    Beauty is absurd. Joy is absurd. Laughter is absurd.

    Collect as many absurdities in your life as possible. People collect strange things – postal stamps! Collect absurdities; and the more absurdities you have, the richer you are.

    ACCEPTANCE

    Just for twenty-four hours, try it – total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it, don’t react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before. Somebody insults you: you feel weak, you feel disturbed, you start thinking of how to get your revenge. That man has hooked you, and now you will move round and round. For days, nights, months, even years, you will not be able to sleep, you will have bad dreams. People can waste a whole life over a small thing, just because someone insulted them.

    Just look back into your past and you will remember a few things. You were a small child and the teacher in the class called you an idiot, and you still remember it and you feel resentment. Your father said something – your parents have forgotten, and even if you remind them they will not be able to remember it. Your mother looked at you in a certain way and since then the wound has been there. And it is still open, fresh; if anybody touches it, you will explode. Don’t help this wound to grow. Don’t make this wound your soul. Go to the roots, be with the whole. For twenty-four hours – just twenty-four hours – try not to react, not to reject, whatsoever happens.

    If someone pushes you and you fall to the ground – fall! Then get up and go home. Don’t do anything about it. If somebody hits you, bow down your head and accept it with gratitude. Go home, don’t do anything, just for twenty-four hours, and you will know a new upsurge of energy that you have never known before, a new vitality arising from the roots. And once you know it, once you have tasted it, your life will be different. Then you will laugh at all the foolish things you have been doing, at all the resentments, reactions, revenges, with which you have been destroying yourself.

    Nobody else can destroy you except you; nobody else can save you except you. You are the Judas and you are the Jesus.

    ACCIDENTS

    Because life goes ahead and your mind is past-oriented, mind and life never meet. Mind goes backwards, lives backwards. Mind is a rearview mirror. Use it when the occasion arises. Yes, the rearview mirror in the car has some important function to fulfill. But if you become obsessed with the rearview mirror, and you only look into the rearview mirror and drive the car looking always into the rearview mirror, then there is going to be danger. Then there are going to be accidents and accidents and nothing else.

    And that’s what has been happening to humanity. Look: three thousand years of history and you will find only accidents and accidents and accidents. In three thousand years we have fought five thousand wars. How many more accidents do you want? And in these three thousand years, what have we done to the earth, to nature? We have destroyed the ecology. Now if something is not done immediately, the earth may become uninhabitable.

    The earth has been poisoned by us, we are killing it. We have to live on it and we are turning it into a corpse! It has started stinking in many places. We have given nature and earth a cancer: nature has given us life, and we are giving death to nature in return. And the basic reason, the basic cause, is that we have been listening to the mind, which moves backwards.

    ACTING

    Acting is the most spiritual of professions for the simple reason that the actor has to be in a paradox: he has to become identified with the act he is performing, and yet remain a watcher.

    If he is acting as Hamlet he has to become absolutely involved in being a Hamlet, he has to forget himself totally in his act, and yet at the deepest core of his being he has to remain a spectator, a watcher. If he really becomes absolutely identified with Hamlet, then there is bound to be trouble.

    The real actor has to live a paradox: he has to act as if he is what he is acting, and yet deep down he knows that I am not this. That’s why I say acting is the most spiritual of professions.

    The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into acting. Then this whole earth is just a stage, and all the people are nothing but actors, and we are enacting a play. Then if you are a beggar you play your act as beautifully as you can, and if you are the king you play your act as beautifully as you can. But deep down the beggar knows, I am not it, and the king too knows, I am not it.

    If the beggar and the king both know that What I am doing and acting is just acting; it is not me, not my reality, then both are arriving at the very center of their being, what I call witnessing. Then they are performing certain acts and witnessing those acts, too.

    So acting is certainly the most spiritual profession, and all spiritual persons are nothing but actors. The whole earth is their stage, and the whole of life is nothing but a drama enacted.

    002

    A Hollywood director once sent out word that he was looking for an actor to play the role of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The actor was to be over six feet tall, young and vigorous and have an excellent command of the language.

    On the day of the casting call, many fine tall young men showed up, but among them was a little old Jewish man with a heavy Yiddish accent. The director picked him out immediately and asked, What do you want?

    The man answered I vant to be an hector. I vant to play Hemlet!

    Are you kidding or just crazy? the director asked. You are only five feet tall and you have an accent so thick I could cut it with a knife. What can you possibly do?

    The little man said, I vant to hect. Giff me a chance.

    Finally the director gave in. Get up on stage and try it.

    The little man stepped out onto the stage. Somehow he looked much taller and full of energy. He began to speak with a booming voice and the perfect king’s English: To be or not to be....

    When he was finished, there was a hush. Everyone was amazed. The director said, That’s unbelievable!

    The other actors said, That’s wonderful!

    The little Jew just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Dat’s hecting!"

    ACTIVITY

    Remember two words: one is action, another is activity. Action is not activity; activity is not action. Their natures are diametrically opposite. Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn’t matter, it is not a response; you are so restless within that the situation is just an excuse to be active.

    Action comes out of a silent mind – it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Activity comes out of a restless mind – it is the ugliest. Action is when it has a relevance; activity is irrelevant. Action is moment to moment, spontaneous; activity is loaded with the past. It is not a response to the present moment, rather, it is pouring your restlessness, which you have been carrying from the past, into the present. Action is creative. Activity is very very destructive – it destroys you, it destroys others.

    Try to see the delicate distinction. For example, you are hungry then you eat – this is action. But you are not hungry, you don’t feel any hunger at all, and still you go on eating – this is activity. You destroy the food, you crush your teeth together and destroy the food; it gives you a little release of your inner restlessness.

    ADAM’S APPLE

    This gland in the throat is called Adam’s apple because Adam ate the apple and he could not swallow. it. It got stuck in the throat because he was feeling divided: half of him wanted to eat and explore, and half of him was afraid. And he did it in a conflict. So don‘t create more Adam’s apples—never! Do things totally so you can swallow them and digest them.

    ADMIRATION

    One wants to be admired because one has no respect for oneself. We are brought up with guilt feelings deeply rooted in us. From the very beginning we are condemned by the parents, by the teachers, by the priests, by the politicians, by the whole establishment. A single note is continuously repeated to every child, that Whatsoever you are doing is not right. You are doing what should not be done and you are not doing what should be done. Every child is given directly and indirectly the impression that he is not really wanted, that his parents are tired, that he is being somehow tolerated, that he is a nuisance.

    This creates a deep wound in every person, and a rejection of oneself arises. To cover up that wound we seek admiration.

    Admiration is a compensation. If you respect yourself that is more than enough; if you love yourself there is no need for any admiration, there is no desire at all, because once you start desiring admiration from others you start compromising with them. You have to fulfill their expectations, only then will they admire you. You have to be according to their dictates, you cannot live a life of freedom.

    ADULTERY

    The meaning—the ordinary meaning—of the word is making love to a woman you are not married to. But the real meaning of adultery is making love while you are not in love. She may be your own wife, but if you are not in love, then making love to her is adultery.

    And man is a complex phenomenon: today you may be in love with your wife—yes, even with your wife! I know it is difficult, it is hard, and it is very rare too, but it happens. Today you may be in love with your own wife, and then making love to her is prayer, is worship, it is communion with God.

    And this communion can happen even with some other woman to whom you are not married—if love is there, then it is not adultery. And if love is not there, then even what you are doing with your wife is adultery.

    ADVERTISING

    The advertiser believes in the science of repetition; he simply goes on repeating that this brand of cigarette is the best. When you read it for the first time you may not believe it. But next time, again and again – how long can you remain an unbeliever? By and by the belief will arise. And the belief will be such that you may not even become conscious of it. It will be subliminal, it will be just underneath consciousness. One day suddenly, when you go to the store and the store-keeper asks what brand of cigarette you need, you will say a certain brand. That repetition worked. It hypnotized you.

    That’s how religions have been functioning in the world – and all politics depends on it too. Advertise, go on repeating to the public, and don’t be bothered whether they believe or not – that’s not the point. Hitler says there is only one difference between a truth and a lie: the truth is a lie that has been repeated very often. And man can believe any lies. Man’s gullibility is infinite. Man can believe in hell, man can believe in heaven, man can believe in angels, man can believe in devils, man can believe in anything! You just go on repeating.

    And there is no need to argue. An advertisement never argues – have you observed the fact? There is no need to argue. The advertisement simply persuades you, it never argues. An arguer may not be able to convince you but a person who persuades you, who simply goes on throwing soft suggestions at you, not direct arguments.... Because when somebody argues with you, you may become defensive, but if somebody simply goes on hinting at certain things, not in any direct way, just supposing, you are more prone to be convinced by it.

    ADVICE

    Listen, but don’t follow. Listen well, but follow your own insight, don’t follow others’ advice. Listen certainly—very meditatively, try to understand what they are wanting to convey to you. They may really be well wishers, but if you start following blindly you will never attain to your own intelligence. You will remain dependent on crutches, you will always look up to others to tell you what to do, what not to do. You will always need leaders—which is a very unhealthy state, to need leaders.

    Listen, because people have great experiences, and if they are sharing, willing to share, it will be foolish on your part not to listen. Sharing their experience may give you great insight—it will help you to become more aware—but don‘t follow.

    People follow literally and then they become just blind. When others are giving you all that you need, what is the need to have your own eyes? And when others are chewing for you, what is the need to chew on your own? Slowly, slowly you become more and more weak, more and more impoverished, more and more starved...

    The real friend is one who does not advise you but helps you to become more alert, more aware, more conscious of life—its problems, its challenges, its mysteries. And helps you to go on your own voyage, gives you courage to experiment, gives you courage to seek and search, gives you courage to commit many mistakes... because one who is not ready to commit mistakes will never learn anything at all.

    Commit as many mistakes as you can, but don’t commit the same mistake twice because that makes you stupid. Commit new mistakes, invent new mistakes, and you will be learning all the time, and your intelligence will be growing all the time.

    Your intelligence needs sharpening. The real friends help you to sharpen your intelligence. They don‘t give you fixed advice, because fixed advice is of no use. What is true today may not be true tomorrow, and what is right in one situation may be wrong in another. And situations are changing all the time, so what you need is not a fixed pattern of living but a way of seeing, so wherever you are, in whatsoever situation you find yourself, you know how to behave spontaneously, how to depend on your own being.

    AGING

    Seasons are beautiful, and through seasons every moment you become new—every moment a new mood, every moment a new nuance of being; every moment new eyes and a new face.

    And who has told you that an old person is ugly? The old woman will be ugly if she is still trying to look young; then she will be ugly. Then her face will be painted, with lipstick and this and that, and then she will be ugly. But if an old woman accepts old age as natural, as it should be, then you cannot find a more beautiful face than an old face—wrinkled; wrinkled through many seasons, seasoned; many experiences, mature, grownup.

    An old person becomes beautiful if he has lived life. If he has not lived, then he wants to cling to some past moment that is no longer there. And this is the ugly man: when youth has passed and you are trying to show that you are young. When sex has passed—should have passed, if you have lived—and you are still seeking things that are good in their season, that are beautiful in certain moments of life. But an old man is ridiculous falling in love... ridiculous! He is as ridiculous as a young man not falling in love—out of season, out of step with life.

    ALCHEMY

    Meditate on anything negative, and slowly slowly you will be simply taken by surprise – that sadness turns into joy, that anger turns into compassion, that greed turns into sharing, and so on, so forth. This is the science of inner alchemy: how to change the negative into the positive, how to change the base metal into gold.

    But remember, never start with the positive because you don’t know anything of the positive. And that’s what is being taught by many people in the world – the positive thinkers they are called. They don’t know anything about the inner alchemy. You don’t begin with gold. If you already have gold, then what is the point of beginning at all? You don’t need alchemy. You have to begin with base metal, the base metal has to be changed into gold. And the base metal is what you have, is what you ARE. Hell is what you are; it has to be transformed into heaven. Poison is available; it has to be transformed into nectar. Start with the negative.

    All the buddhas have insisted: Go via negativa, because the negative brings the positive, and the negative brings the positive so easily. You don’t drag it, you don’t impose it upon yourself. If you start with the positive, as the so-called positive thinkers are teaching, you will become phony. What will you do? How will you start with joy? You may start smiling, but that smile will be painted: it will be just on the lips, not even skin-deep.

    Start with the negative and you don’t need to think about the positive at all. If you meditate on the negative, if you go deeply into it, to the deepest root of it, suddenly an explosion happens: the negative disappears and the positive has arrived. In fact it has always been there, hidden behind the negative. The negative was a shelter. The negative was needed because you were not yet worthy enough; the negative was needed so that you could become worthy enough to receive the positive.

    ALCOHOL

    The person who is interested in alcohol must be living in misery, in a kind of suffering. That’s why he wants somehow to forget it all. Alcohol is nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself.

    My whole effort is to help you to remember yourself—and you want to forget yourself! By forgetting yourself you will be creating more and more hell for yourself and for others. Remember, rather – remember yourself.

    I am not in favor of any alcoholic beverages. I am not in favor of any psychedelic drugs either, because they all create illusory worlds for you and they all are distractions. They make you more and more oblivious of your own being, unaware of your own self.

    My work is based in awareness. The word awareness is the golden key here, the master key.

    003

    Jake the barber, passing by a tenement house in the predawn hours of the morning, saw a man leaning limply against the doorway.

    What’s the matter? he asked sympathetically. Drunk?

    Yeah, I’m afraid sho.

    Do you live in this house?

    Yep.

    Want me to help you upstairs?

    Yeah, shank you.

    What floor do you live on?

    Shecon’.

    With much difficulty, Jake half dragged, half carried the wilting figure up the dark stairway to the second floor.

    Is this your apartment? he asked.

    Yep, affirmed the man, his eyes already closed in alcoholic slumber.

    Jake opened the unlocked door and shoved the drunk inside. He then groped his way back downstairs. But as he was going through the vestibule, he made out the dim outline of another man, apparently in worse condition than the first, staggering in front of the house.

    What’s the trouble, mister? he asked. Are you drunk?

    Yesh, came the feeble reply.

    Do you live in this house?

    Yesh.

    Don’t tell me you live on the second floor, too?

    Yesh.

    Again Jake half carried the stranger to the second floor. He pushed open the same door and shoved the man inside the darkened room.

    As Jake was emerging from the building he discerned yet a third man, evidently worse off than either of the other two. This poor fellow was disheveled and bleeding from cuts and bruises on his head and face. He was about to approach him and offer him assistance when the object of his solicitude darted into the street and threw himself into the arms of a policeman.

    Offisher, he gasped, pointing a quivering finger at Jake, perteck me from this man. All night long he’s done nothin’ but drag me upstairs an’ throw me down the elevator shaft! "

    ALERTNESS

    If you are alert, if your actions become more and more aware, whatsoever you do will not be done sleepily. The whole effort of society is to make you automatic, is to make you an automaton, is to make you a perfect efficient mechanism.

    When you start learning to drive you are alert but not efficient, because alertness takes energy, and you have to be alert to many things – the gears, the wheel, the brake, accelerator, clutch. There are so many things you have to be aware of that you cannot be efficient, you cannot go fast. But by and by, when you become efficient, you need not be aware. You can go on humming a song or thinking inside or solving a puzzle, and the car goes by itself. The body takes it automatically. The more automatic you become the more efficient.

    Society needs efficiency, so it makes you more and more automatic: In everything you do, be automatic. Society doesn’t bother about your awareness; your awareness is a problem for society. You are asked to be more efficient, more productive. Machines are more productive than you. The society doesn’t want you to be as men, it needs you as mechanical devices, so it makes you more efficient and less aware. This is automatization. This is how the society fools you. You become efficient, but your soul is lost.

    If you can understand me, then the whole effort of meditative techniques is to deautomatize you, to make you again alert, to make you again a man, not a machine.

    004

    If you start learning to drive, in the beginning you have to be very alert – alert about many things: the wheel, and the accelerator, and the brake and the clutch, and the people on the road. You have to be conscious of all these things. Slowly slowly, once you have learnt to drive, you need not think of anything at all. Everything has become automatized. Now you can sing a song, smoke a cigarette, listen to the radio, talk to the friend – you can do anything! Now, that part, the driving part, needs no attention, your attention is free.

    This is a necessity of life; otherwise you will not be able to do many things. So whatsoever you have learnt is always transferred to the robot. Then the robot does it and you are free to learn something else. This is perfectly okay in ordinary life, but, slowly slowly, the robot becomes bigger and bigger. And your tiny consciousness remains tiny.

    The work that one has to do upon oneself consists in taking back from the robot, deautomatizing processes. And you will be surprised: if you de-automatize any process, great awareness is released.

    Just walk consciously for half an hour and you will be surprised how quiet, how peaceful and serene you look and you feel. Just sitting in your chair, watch your ingoing, outgoing breath, silently – the breath goes in, and you know, you watch, it is going in. Each step of the breath: it has touched your nostrils, the inner side of the nose, it is moving, it has touched your throat, it has moved, it has gone deep into your lungs; you can feel the belly coming up. And then you feel for a moment it has stopped. No movement. And then the return journey: the belly falls back, the air is going out; again you feel the same route. It leaves your nostrils... and again a moment’s gap. And then again new fresh air moves in.

    If you simply watch such a simple process, you will be surprised: one hour’s watching of breath will bring you so much silence and so much alertness, as you have never felt in your life. And that makes a difference. That is the difference that makes the difference, that transforms your whole life, slowly slowly. Then you can change everything: eating, walking, breathing – even making love can become a very conscious, alert phenomenon.

    ALIENATION

    Uproot a tree and it will start dying. Its greenness will be gone, soon the foliage will wither away, flowers will not come any more. The spring will come and go but the tree will know nothing of it; it has become alienated from existence. It is no longer rooted in the earth, it is no longer related to the sun, it no longer has any bridge. It is surrounded by walls, all bridges are broken.

    That’s what has happened to the modern man: he is an uprooted tree. He has forgotten how to relate with existence, he has forgotten how to whisper with the clouds and the trees and the mountains. He has completely forgotten the language of silence... because it is the language of silence that becomes a bridge between you and the universe that surrounds you. The universe knows no other language. On the earth there are three thousand languages; existence knows no language except the language of silence.

    An English general was talking to a German general after the Second World War. The German was very puzzled; he said, "We had the best equipped army in the world, the best war technology, the greatest leader that history has ever known, the best of generals, and such a devoted army. Why? – why couldn’t we win? It seems simply

    Impossible that we have been defeated! It is unbelievable – although it has happened – but we cannot believe it!"

    The English general laughed and said, There is one thing you have forgotten: before starting any battle we used to pray to God; that is the secret of our victory.

    The German said, But we also used to pray to God, every morning!

    The English general laughed and he said, We know that you used to pray, but you pray in German and we pray in English – and who told you that God knows German?

    Everybody thinks his language is the language of God. Hindus say Sanskrit is the holy language, the divine language – deva vani – God understands only Sanskrit. And ask the Mohammedans – then God understands only Arabic; otherwise, why should he have revealed the Koran in Arabic? And ask the Jews – then God understands only Hebrew.

    God understands no language because God means this total existence. God understands only silence – and we have forgotten silence. And because we have forgotten silence, forgotten the art of meditation, we have become alienated.

    AMBITION

    Ambitions are infectious. Avoid ambitious people, otherwise something of their fever is bound to infect you, is bound to affect you. You may start moving in a direction which is not yours, you may start doing things which you had never thought to do in the first place, but just because you fell in company with somebody. . .

    Just look at your life—it is almost all accidental. It is not essential, it is accidental. Your father wanted you to be a doctor so you are a doctor. Now it was his ambition that his son should be a famous doctor; he fulfilled his ambition. He used you as a means to fulfill his ambition. This is not love—this is exploitation.

    Ambition is the root cause of madness. Try to understand your ambitiousness; your effort to be somebody in the world will drive you mad. Just be nobody and then there is no problem. Drop ambitiousness and start living, because the ambitious person cannot live; he always postpones. His real life will always be tomorrow—and the tomorrow never comes. The ambitious person is bound to be aggressive and violent, and the violent person and aggressive person are bound to go mad.

    The non-ambitious person is peaceful, loving, compassionate. The ambitious person is always in a hurry, running, rushing towards something which he vaguely feels is there, but he will never find it. It is like the horizon; it does not exist, it only appears. The non-ambitious person lives here now, and to be here now is to be sane. To be totally in this moment is to be sane.

    AMERICA

    America is the youngest country in the whole world; its history is only three hundred years. It is nothing compared to the histories of China, India. In India, three hundred years mean nothing. The Indian astrologers prove – and nobody has been able to contradict them yet – that Indian civilization is at least ninety thousand years old.

    In the Rigveda, the most ancient book in the whole world, a certain constellation of stars is described in detail, in every particular, precisely. That constellation happened ninety thousand years ago, according to the scientists. Since then that kind of constellation has not happened again.

    There is no way for the people who were writing the Rigveda to describe the stars and their constellations in such precise and exact detail unless they had observed it. Now the proof is such that no argument can defeat it. A country which is ninety thousand years old – what does three hundred years mean to it? China perhaps is even older.

    America has no burden of past conditioning – that’s one thing. It is a very thin layer of conditioning, three hundred years, in comparison to ninety thousand years. To change the Hindu mind is almost impossible. It is so old, so thick; so deep have gone the roots. But the American mind is only very superficially conditioned – one thing that makes it possible that America can be deprogrammed, and Americans can become the first citizens of a new world.

    Secondly, America is the only country where all kinds of people – Spanish, Italian, English, German, Swedish, Belgian, Swiss – all kinds of people have mixed. It is not a race; it is more cosmopolitan than any other country.

    The man of the future has to be cosmopolitan. He cannot be an Italian, a German, an Indian, an African. No, he can only be a human being. There is more possibility in America for it to happen. All other countries are racial; America is a nonracial country. It is a tremendous opportunity to create a new world without any racial mind.

    Thirdly, America is more receptive to new ideas, new technologies, new scientific research, than any other country, for the simple psychological reason that a child has no past, he has only a future. That’s why he is always ready to learn – in fact, asking too many questions because he wants to know what this life is all about. He harasses his parents by asking questions, which the parents themselves don’t know how to answer. They don’t know the answers either, and they are not courageous enough to say, We don’t know.

    An old man has no future, only past. The old man looks backward, not forward. In the future there is only darkness and death, in the past are all his golden memories; he lives in the past. The same is true about countries. A country like India or China has such a long past – they live in the past. India thinks it has seen its golden age.

    You will not believe that in India the theory of evolution is not acceptable. India has another theory: the theory of involution. Things are not growing toward better states, evolving – no. Things are falling down – involution. India has the idea that the best age was thousands of years ago; they call it the age of truth. Then the second stage came, the fall started. They call it simply the age of three legs. The first age they compare to a table with four legs – completely balanced, with no possibility of falling. The second stage has lost one leg, so it is a tripod with three legs, treta – still not too bad, because even with three legs a tripod has a certain balance. The third stage they call dwapar – the age of two legs. Now things are becoming dangerous. A table with two legs – it is not a bicycle, it is bound to fall. The bicycle will also fall unless you go on riding it so that it has no chance to fall. Slow down and it starts wavering; stop and it falls. But a table is not a bicycle, so it is bound to fall. The fall is inevitable. The fourth stage has only one leg. They call it the age of darkness – kaliyuga. We are living in the age of darkness.

    Now, a country that thinks in such terms cannot accept evolution. It has happened – now there is no future. The golden age has come and gone; now there is only darkness and death.

    America is just like a child. Three hundred years compared to ninety thousand years – it is just a small child. It has its eyes open, ready to evolve, to grow. It has no past to be bothered about. In spite of the third-rate politicians, America is going to evolve, evolve into a new humanity.

    ANALYSIS

    Life needs to be lived in its totality, life needs to be celebrated. Life needs to be penetrated – that is the only way to know it. Not in the lab, not going deep into life cells, not by analyzing the elements; those are constituents of life, but life is more than the sum total of its parts.

    Somebody is playing on a guitar, beautiful music. The scientist will become interested in the guitar, not in the music. He will think, From where is it coming? He may become interested in the fingers of the musician and in the instrument. He will analyze the instrument and he will find some wood some strings, this and that – but that is not music! And if he analyses the fingers of the musician he will find some blood, some bones, skin – and that is not music! Music is something more. The hands of the musician and the guitar are simply an opportunity for the beyond to descend to the earth. 005

    The beauty of a rose flower – is it just a sum total of its parts? It should be, according to the ordinary mathematics – it is not. The beauty is something more. Just by putting all the chemicals, the water, the earth, the air, and everything that constitutes the flower – even if you put all that together the beauty will not arise. The beauty is something more; hence in analysis it disappears.

    If you go to the chemist, the scientist, to inquire about the beauty of a rose, he will analyze it. Analysis is the method of science. Analysis means breaking it into its parts so that you can know of what it constitutes. But the moment you break it into parts, the invisible more disappears. The invisible more exists in the organic unity; you cannot analyze it. It is synthesis, it is totality.

    The same is true about all the higher values. A beautiful poem is not just the words that compose it; it is something more. Otherwise anybody who can put words together in a rhythmical form will become a Shakespeare, a Kalidas, a Milton, a Shelley. Then any linguist, grammarian will become a great poet. That does not happen. You may know the whole grammar of the language, you may be acquainted with all the words of the language, still to be a poet is a totally different phenomenon. Poetry comes first, then come the words, not vice versa – it is not that you arrange the words and the poetry arises.

    A few of the students of Charles Darwin once played a trick on the great scientist – because he was continuously researching about all forms of life and he was always categorizing to what species a certain animal or insect belongs to.

    It was his birthday and his students thought of playing a trick, just a joke. They dissected many insects and glued their parts – legs from one insect, wings from another, head from the third one, the body from the fourth, and so on. At least from twenty insects they managed to glue together a new insect which exists nowhere.

    They brought it to Charles Darwin and they said, Here is a great surprise for you, as a birthday present. You may have never come across this insect! And we have been hiding it for this day. Can you tell us to what species it belongs, what is its name?

    Darwin looked at the insect and he asked only one question to the students; Does it hum?

    They said, Yes, when it was alive it used to hum.

    Then, he said, it is a humbug!

    You can put parts together, but you will create only a humbug; you will not be able to create life. You will not be able to create a new form, a new manifestation of something living.

    ANDROGYNY

    Each man is both man and woman but you become identified with only one part of your being. You think you are a man but there is also a woman inside you, waiting to be recognised, received, accepted. And you go on denying it. You say, ‘I am a man.’ You will remain lopsided. If you are a woman there is also a man waiting within you, and you go on denying the man. Then you will never be one whole, you will always remain split.

    There is a point of awareness, understanding, vision, where your man and woman inside meet and mingle and disappear into each other. That’s what William Blake has called the inner marriage, when you have become both, androgynous, man and woman both. In India we have the perfect symbol for it – Ardhanarishwar. There are statues of Shiva in which half of his body is man and half of his body is woman. He is both the lover and the beloved, the yin and yang. He is androgynous.

    This same kind of meeting with the opposites goes on happening in many directions and many dimensions. Foolishness and wisdom are two polarities. If you are wise and you deny your foolishness you are not fully wise, because a part of you has not yet been absorbed. A part of you is hanging around you; it has not yet become an integral part of you. If you are a fool and you think that you are a fool then your wise man inside you has been denied, suppressed. A wise man is both and yet neither. He transcends both so you can say he is neither, but because the dualities have disappeared in him and have come to become a new synthesis, you can call him both too.

    ANGELS

    Nobody believes in the sun, in the moon, because they are. People believe in god and angels and devils and this and that, because they are not. You are simply creating belief systems to cling to.

    ANGER

    Anger is just a mental vomit. Something is wrong that you have taken in, and your whole psychic being wants to throw it out. But there is no need to throw it out onto somebody. It is because people throw it on others that society tells them to control it.

    There is no need to throw anger on anybody. You can go to your bathroom, you can go on a long walk—it means that something is inside that needs fast activity so that it is released. Just do a little jogging and you will feel it is released, or take a pillow and beat the pillow, fight with the pillow, and bite the pillow until your hands and teeth are relaxed. With five minutes of catharsis you will feel unburdened, and once you know this you will never throw it on anybody, because that is absolutely foolish.

    The first thing in transformation is to express anger – but not on anybody, because if you express it on somebody you cannot express it totally. You may like to kill, but it is not possible; you may like to bite, but it is not possible. But that can be done to a pillow. A pillow is enlightened, a buddha! The pillow will not react, and the pillow will not go to any court, and the pillow will not bring any enmity against you, and the pillow will not do anything. The pillow will be happy, and the pillow will laugh at you.

    ANGUISH

    There is great anguish in every heart—the anguish of not knowing oneself, the anguish of not knowing from where we are

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